ABC, CNN Take Home SPJ Awards

The Society of Professional Journalists has announced the winners of the Sigma Delta Chi awards.

ABC’s “World News with Diane Sawyer” wins the Breaking News award for ABC’s coverage of the Japan earthquake and tsunami. ABC’s Brian Ross wins the Investigative Reporting award for his “Peace Corps: A trust betrayed.” Also, ABCNews.com, in conjunction with The Center for Public Integrity won an Investigative Reporting award for “Green energy: Contracts, connections and the collapse of Solyndra.”

CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta and his team win a Documentary award for “Terror in the dust.” and CNN’s Freedom Project wins a Public Service award. CBS’s Scott Pelley wins for Feature Reporting for his “60 Minutes: Hard times generation.” And NBC’s Bob Dotson wins the Online Column Writing award for his American Story series on msnbc.com.

Judges chose the winners from more than 1,700 entries in categories covering print, radio, television and online. The awards recognize outstanding work published or broadcast in 2011. The complete list of winners is here.